You may be a college student or a working professional. You may have a job to go to on a regular basis or classes to attend. If you start going to the gym 6 days a week for 2 hours, it will negatively impact your job or college.

Does this mean you cannot make gains?

Absolutely NOT!

To build muscle, you need:

1. To create a mechanical overload aka lift weights and get stronger.

2. Train your muscle groups 2 to 3x per week to build more muscle as a natural lifter.

3. Increase training volume with time.

4. Be consistent.

Consistency trumps everything here. Essentially, you need a plan that promotes consistency and it fulfils the other factors.

To do this with a busy schedule, you can start doing full body splits 3x per week.

How Does A Full Body Split Work?

A full body split is a workout where you train all the major muscle groups using compound exercises and throw in some accessory work. The compound exercises activate more muscle per unit time and give the added benefit of elevated muscle protein synthesis (MPS).

Day 5:

Apart from the elevated muscle protein synthesis rates, the other benefits of a full body split are:

1. It saves time.

2. It helps you recover better.

3. It helps you build a good amount of muscle.

4. It increases the rate of fat loss by increasing energy expenditure.

5. It fits in your schedule.

So, if you are short on time, have long working hours or have long study hours, stop listening to the competitive bodybuilder and program your training in a way that you can stick to and you make gains.

Author bio:

Pratik Thakkar is the co-founder and director of GetSetGo Fitness, an online fitness company. He is regarded as someone who will make it easy for you to understand the process by putting things in the right context and providing science-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding. You can reach out to him at pratik@getsetgo.fitness and follow him on Instagram and Facebook.